5mo ago
(hub.libre.computer)
270 thread views
#245486
on alternative SBC (think raspberry pi) 
hardware maker tries "helping" by continually not reading his post and being very smug 
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!codecels
anyone here who actually understands the workings of ARM SBCs?
I've attempted many times to grok the boot process but it always seems like there's essential, magic, snowflake, partitions that are REQUIRED.
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it's a pain because ARM SoC manufacturers maintain their own u-boot/kernel source tree instead of upstreaming their (sometimes proprietary/NDA-ed) changes
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In theory this board boots mainline kernels.
I guess I have a hard time picturing where u-boot fits in, how it boots and where it boots from.
Is u-boot flashed on the SBC itself or do you add u-boot to your microsd card? IME it seems like both is often true.
There's also recent boards, like this one, which support UEFI...when I think of UEFI on x86_64 it's very much flashed to a motherboard, but seemingly you use u-boot to chain-load something like Tianocore?
Maybe I should view u-boot closer to coreboot for x86_64?
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typically it's Boot ROM -> u-boot -> kernel. u-boot is like a BIOS in ARM world (bootloader). The location of u-boot in either SPI flash or SD-card will depend on whether the boot ROM can initialize the DRAM and setup the SD card controller to read u-boot off the SD card. some devices might require u-boot to spit out a SPL which is like a pre-u-boot program that can be stored in SPI flash that initialises the DRAM and load main u-boot from the SD card.
not sure about UEFI but i think u-boot supports a subset of UEFI features and supports loading of efi binaries.
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Gotcha.
Is the Boot ROM closer to the BIOS and u-boot is closer to GRUB?
What is SPI flash?
I see, I think I've seen SPL talked about before.
Do you have recommandations for SBCs? Clearly I ought to use my homelab but sometimes I like fiddling with low power ARM SBCs.
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Boot ROM is the first piece of code that the CPU executes once out of reset stored in a block of on-die ROM. it's even lower level than the BIOS. Seems like some people consider boot ROM to be code stored in flash but it's not the case in ARM world since you need some code on-die to initialise the flash controller and to do other things (like signature verification of boot images). it's likely that the intel ME or AMD PSP have boot ROMs in them to run code from once the ME/PSP comes out of reset.
SPI flash are small pieces of flash or EEPROM that stores external code that the CPU would run after the boot ROM. SPI is a simple data bus protocol that these flash components implement. If I am not wrong the BIOS/UEFI firmware is stored in these kinds of flash in the x86 world too.
not really since i don't really use them at home. i do want to try out rpi5s but i don't have a use case for them rn. try out the risc-v sbcs though for fun, it's probably buggy but i would imagine it's fun to try writing an OS for them
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This info helped me get Fedora on my Le Potato - thanks again!
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thanks for the info, king!
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I bought a 2nd hand x86 ex-office PC for this very reason the other day (which tbh was cheaper than a lot of Pis and their clones). There's a bunch of stuff on ARM that's just a little bit annoying to deal with.
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Yeah that's my recommendation too.
I've chatted with people who seem to think x86 machines use 500W watts at idle and would prefer to use microSD I/O over PCIe.
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Boot processes are always digital voodoo stay away from that for your own sanity
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Yeah I wrote a hobby OS based on the osdev wiki and x86_64 is it's own helscape - at least it has BIOS/UEFI though.
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Actually went through that pain just over a year ago. It sucked, we had to get help from the vendor and from some experts at another division of our own company. U-Boot is fricking sorcery and the people who know it are literal wizards.
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that way madness lay
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